''Belonocnema'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of oak gall wasps in the family

Cynipidae Gall wasps, also incorrectly called gallflies, are hymenopterans of the family Cynipidae in the wasp superfamily Cynipoidea. Their common name comes from the galls they induce on plants for larval development. About 1,300 species of this genera ...

. There are three described species: '' B. treatae'', '' B. fossoria'' and '' B. kinseyi''. These species are found in the United States from

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, east to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. ''Belonocnema'' species induce

galls Galls (from the Latin , 'oak-apple') or ''cecidia'' (from the Greek , anything gushing out) are a kind of swelling growth on the external tissues of plants, fungi, or animals. Plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues, similar to be ...

on oaks and have both sexual and asexual generations. A number of inquiline,

parasitoid In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...

, and hyperparasitoid wasp species have been reared from ''Belonocnema'' galls.

Taxonomy

The genus was first named and described by Gustav Mayr in 1881 with ''Belonocnema treatae'' as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

. The taxonomy of the species in the genus has been subject to different interpretations but now appears resolved through study of the morphology, ecology, and genetics of the genus. The genus ''Dryorhizoxenus'', described by William Ashmead, is considered a synonym of ''Belonocnema'', with its type species, ''D. floridanus'', included in ''B. treatae''.

References

Cynipidae Articles created by Qbugbot {{apocrita-stub Hymenoptera genera Taxa named by Gustav Mayr